04 Dec 2003 | JF said...

Anyone else think there's opportunity for a retailer to provide less choice instead of more choice? Often times -- especially with consumer electronics -- the more options, the more indecision, and the more buyers remorse.

I've been working (in my head and on paper) on an e-commerce site that only sells 30 products -- 10 categories, and a good, better, best in each category. Done.

Curious to hear your thoughts about that concept and less choice over more choice.

04 Dec 2003 | Paul said...

There's definitely something to be said for less choice. It takes a lot of the confusion out of the process, but the buyer also has to have some sort of trust with that company to eliminate so many of those choices.

I'm sure you got that idea from Apple, JF, and I think it's a good one to shoot for. While they're a far cry away from the four-product quadrant, they still have the Good/ Better/ Best model and I think it's the Way It Should Be.

04 Dec 2003 | RS said...

I agree with Uncle Mark about Barry Lyndon. Really good film.

04 Dec 2003 | JF said...

Has anyone tried to buy a cell phone or digital camera lately? It's exhausting and you're never quite sure you bought the right one. Choice can be smothering at times. Competition is very important, but I'd like to find a retailer who I can trust to pick out just a few products that will satisfy 95% of the market.

04 Dec 2003 | The Scholar said...

Choice to me means having the freedom to pick and choose whatever product I feel works best to me. When looking at a 100 cellphones I no longer feel free because any choice I do make is always second guessed. Basically too many choices is not good.

04 Dec 2003 | BD said...

I could only get halfway through this self-promotional tripe due to its smug, condescending tone of voice. Uncle Mark? Rules for Walking in New York City? Give me a break. Good Experience has in increasingly low signal-to-noise ratio, and this PDF was the straw that clicked the mouse that sent the unsubscribe email.

Back on topic: I think the Good, Better, Best idea is solid - a kind of a Consumer Reports meets Amazon. So the key to success would be building the brand around expertise, quality and trust. Come to think of it, this is something that Amazon could easily tack on to the current site.

04 Dec 2003 | Matthew Oliphant said...

Has anyone tried to buy a cell phone or digital camera lately?

Just bought a phone from and set up service with Verizon. And for 80% of the overall transaction, I used the phone to talk with a sales rep and not the Web.

I did use the Web to see which service provider was the best (via Consumer Reports before calling Verizon), and to find out about the phones that were available in the price range I wanted (via froogle.com and its search results while on the phone with the rep).

Of course, part of my decision was made for me as there is no Web interface for the corporate discount I get. I had to call, but I also found the experience to be very, very satisfying.

On the lots of choices part of this topic, I think the best thing is to provide the choice.;) Some times I want to see 100s of choices. Sometimes I want to see 3. We see something similar to choosing between the two options with the use of "Compare" on many sites. I guess one of the important things to find out is what decisions are made by the customer even before the go to the site.

Can we determine that most customers want superfunctionality in their cell phones? If so this initial page may show the top 4 phones with the best mix of functionality. Is it price? How about the top four cheapest phones?

Preaching to the choir, but understanding your audience is key to making this decision.

05 Dec 2003 | MegoSteve said...

I started to doubt him when he said zoom on a digital camera is unimportant, then he lost my confidence in his judgment when he picked the Gamecube over the vastly superior PS2 and Xbox. I'm guessing his target audience is technophobic newbies.

And for a usability expert to make the main content of his site a PDF... ugh.

05 Dec 2003 | qwerty said...

"Choice is good" is the mantra of capitalism because choice is the result of competition which brings prices down. But choice is only as good for you as the time that you need to make decision is worth nothing. It seems, people start to understand this. Who needs the choice between 300 different beverages at Starbucks? Douglas Copland used the term "option paralysis" for the reaction towards too much choice.

07 Dec 2003 | angelday said...

Having read his paper I firmly believe Mark Hurst doesn't know what the world is up to. (Although I did like the presentation style what he came up with, but that's an other thing.)

ML, I wouldn't have recommended it but I see your point. It's just not the "best" example.

08 Dec 2003 | Michael Spina said...

I would really like to see e-commerce sites providing more ways to shop and compare. Eliminating choices is one option.

But something that would help me, and would be consistent with how I sift through 100 matching results, is to be able to eliminate options. Just click a button next to a product and it disappears from my search results. When I'm shopping for something like a cell phone, one phone will never jump out at me and have every feature I need, and nothing I don't. So I can just pore over the results, and if something is too expensive, eliminate it. Doesn't have feature x? Gone. Pretty soon I'll have a short list of real possibilities, then I can start comparing.

08 Dec 2003 | Brad Hurley said...

Having read his paper I firmly believe Mark Hurst doesn't know what the world is up to.

That's the best recommendation I've seen so far. Why should it matter what the world is up to? What matters is whether the products he recommends work really well and are reliable.

Uncle Mark would appeal to a fairly small subset of consumers, such as technophobes or techno-neophytes who are bewildered by the range of choices, very busy people who would prefer to have their choices made for them by someone else, and people who seek expert opinion to inform their purchasing choices. Most of these people probably don't care where the thundering herd is headed, they just want someone to tell them, "hey, this is a good product, you won't go wrong with it."

Most of us reading SVN probably serve the same function as Uncle Mark to our less technologically minded friends and family. I know I do.

16 Jan 2004 | Owen said...

At WWDC, I listened to Apple representatives make some excellent points about taking the time to build a 100%-compliant Aqua application, and I think all developers need to look beyond the code and listen to what the folks at Apple have to say

16 Jan 2004 | Mark said...

This topic is one we will tackle later in this article, but it refers to making sure that your application and the dock aren't fighting it out for supremacy of the screen.

16 Jan 2004 | Julius said...

If an application is designed well, the reward for users is that they will learn it faster, accomplish their daily tasks more easily, and have fewer questions for the help desk. As a developer of a well-designed application, your returns on that investment are more upgrade revenue, reduced tech support, better reviews, less documentation, and higher customer satisfaction. The rewards of building a good-looking Aqua application are worth taking the extra time.